Review: ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ Falls Victim To Its Own Ambitions

Somewhere, deep in the Sony vaults, is the first draft of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It’s elegant. It’s simple. It probably revolves around the Green Goblin and the close friendship between Peter Parker and Harry Osborne before it all goes horribly wrong. It would have made a great movie. It would have cemented the franchise as something different, lighter, funnier, but willing to get serious where it mattered.

Too bad Sony decided to step in and ruin it.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 should really just be retitled Sony Licks All The Spider-Man Donuts So Marvel Doesn’t Try To Take Any. Again and again, what shines through in this movie is that Corporate wanted this Spider-Man stuff on lock, so they could have their very own Avengers-like franchise, and who cares what it does to the actual movie? Cram Electro in there before he’s announced as the main villain of Dr. Weird or something! We can’t afford Shailene Woodley anymore thanks to those Divergent movies? Better make sure Black Cat’s worked in there then!

The result is a disjointed, overstuffed mess with a severe case of mood whiplash. This is a movie that swings from goofy wise-cracking action sequence to teary break-up within five minutes. That’s the opening, and it just gets worse from there. Is this movie a corporate thriller? A goofy light-hearted action flick? A teen romance? A corny family drama? Hell, why not all four? At once? Constantly?

This is a movie so cheesy that the dramatic fight between Spidey and Electro can’t just black out the whole city, there has to be two airplanes on a collision course who just barely miss each other at the last second. It’s a movie so maudlin Peter can’t just fire a web line to try and save Gwen Stacy, that web line has to unfold, at the tip, into a hand desperately reaching for her, in slow motion. It’s a movie so corny Spidey can take a time out to chat with a fan while the Rhino is standing there eager to shoot him in the face. And it’s a movie so cliched that when the Chameleon is introduced, they use his Dr. Kafka alias and give him a Hogan’s Heroes-type German accent.

The sad thing is that there’s a good movie in here, but it never has room to develop. Harry Osborne, in this movie, is cursed with a terrible genetic condition that’s rapidly killing him; everything he does, he does simply because he doesn’t want to die. He’s got every right to be angry at Peter, his supposed best friend… which the movie undermines because it’s never really clear why, precisely, Peter can’t just fork over a vial of blood with a bunch of notes along the lines of “This is insanely toxic and dangerous and will probably kill you! But good luck!”

Would that we could say the same for Jamie Foxx’s obsessed, creepy Spidey fanboy; Foxx plays Dillon’s emotional neediness and dweebiness so over the top it’s kind of a relief when he falls into that vat of eels. Which, again, it’s never explained why, precisely, Oscorp keeps a bunch of what are obviously genetically modified electric eels in a vat near their power grid. Come on, there’s not any OSHA laws in the Spidey-Verse? If you’re going to have a villain origin, at least bother to make it logically consistent.

Foxx does at least make a credible growly villain, despite being on the receiving end of just about every bad idea this movie has. There’s a moment where Foxx’s turn to the dark side is scored to him chanting through a vocoder that’s even dumber on screen than it sounds, and later on, during a fight, he plays Itsy Bitsy Spider on power transformers. Seriously, I thought he was going to get his own Disney villain song.

At least he’s not Paul Giamatti, whose entire job is basically to mug and sound Russian. I bet if you zoom in on his tattoo, the words “They gave me a check that paid for my house twice over” are woven in there.

In the rare moments where Marc Webb is left alone by the demands of studio executives and toy manufacturers, he shows why he’s a good director for this franchise. The extreme-sports styled footage of Spidey swooping through New York is exhilarating, and when Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are allowed to just be a cute couple, it’s adorable. If the studio ever just got the hell out of his way and let him actually do his damn job, he might just deliver a great movie!

Hopefully, this either tanks so hard Sony returns Spider-Man to Marvel in disgust, or makes such a ridiculous amount of money Sony is forced to give Webb autonomy in the franchise. Despite how wrong this movie goes, it’s not unsalvageable. It just needs to stop being a product to sell merch and start being an actual movie.

I agree, i didnt think it was that bad but the crutch of the story which was built in the first one about his past is carried into this which is a burden to the film. if the just focus on his relationships with the people he has now in his life with harry and gwen and max it would have been better. build 30 minutes with those characters, not ghosts. over all i enjoyed it but there is 2 movies in this trying to get out and marc’s is better than the one sony is trying to make him make.

Wait… Dr. Kafka was the Chameleon? Are you sure? They’re too separate characters in the comics.

Also… this wasn’t the worst movie. It was fun. It was over stuffed, sure, but it got the Spider-Man stuff right. The Peter Parker stuff still isn’t that great… the school should not have cheered for him at graduation, they should have shunned him. Crickets and all. That’s Peter Parker.

I hope you’re wrong (no offense) and it turns out to by Mysterio. He’s the #1 villain I’d like to see on the big screen that hasn’t been up yet. It’d be a great way to show off the Spider Sense too, reacting to the real things and not reacting to the illusions. Fans will know what’s up, but new comers will be like, “Oh my!”

Well, better. There were parts of that movie that were just never going to work. Sandman was well-written but the idea that he shot Uncle Ben was just a bit too CW. I still think it’s better than fans tend to treat it, simply because they don’t realize Peter’s dumb emo haircut/behavior is SUPPOSED to be dumb and emo.

All these studios trying to copy Marvels success and they dont understand the reason Marvel has had those successes. Marvel lets comic book people make movies based on comic books. The others let movie people try to make comic book movies. The ongoing decision to ignore the core of these characters shows through time and again.

Hopefully, this either tanks so hard Sony returns Spider-Man to Marvel in disgust (you know it wont) or makes such a ridiculous amount of money Sony is forced to give Webb autonomy in the franchise (thus cementing their conclusion that it was their tinkering that fixed it).

agreed. DeCann (I think that’s how you spell it) is a great actor and wasn’t used enough. Harry and Peter should have had a lot more screen time together and chance to bond. He says at one point “he’s my best bud” but it felt forced.

The movie wanted to end on a high note, so it gave Peter his entire mourning arc in literally five minutes. Narratively, you should end the film with him as giving up the role of Spider-Man and let the next film show him taking up the mantle again. Or hell, start the movie with it and have him work his way back. The fact he goes through the whole thing literally post-climax is the most rushed part of the movie and was basically done just so the audience didn’t leave all sad.

I did love the opening Spider-man scene though. That might have been the best representation of “goofy spidey” there has been on tv or film.

Nobody is gonna talk about the awful acting? Like really bad? Or that weird beginning scene that served zero purpose whatsoever while at the same time being horribly shot?

I didn’t love the first one but at least I appreciated it. It was competent in many ways. But this one was just dangling at the edge of average.

Some scenes choices are really weird (Dr. Kafka managed to look like a Batman & Robin reject aswell as having the subtlety of acting like a Batamn & Robin reject)

The only thing that I really like and still like is Spiderman himself (Not Peter Parker. Nerdy Hipster Bro is rarely endearing. Especially that scene at the beach with Osborn was just cringe worthy. Dudes being dudes). The very nerve and reflex driven choreography and movement of the character just looks so awesome. And the characterisation of the Hero was pretty spot on.

I couldn’t stop but compare this to Batman & Robin, even if it seems harsh (The Electro/Freeze parallel that was pointed out so many times at this point didn’t help) . Just like Batman Forever, Amazing Spiderman wasn’t a critical success but still managed to be halfway decent. I think that the aspect that rubbed people the wrong way was the overall grittiness and bleakness of the first Amazing . So Sony thought “More Goofy. This is a Comic book for kids” and they sure delivered.

@arm123 Normally I’d say it was a coincidence but this is a movie that stuffs in Alastair Smythe, Dr. Kafka/The Chameleon (if I’m right), featured Norman Osborne as a glorified cameo, and even featured “The Gentleman” as a player (remember the dude whose face we can’t see, but wears a fedora? He’s “Mr. Fiers” in the finale.) So, yeah, she’s the Black Cat.

@K.G. You’re right about the themes of HBO shows being more adult, but just dismissing all “superhero” movies is as vague as saying why don’t they stop making “cop” show. Depends on the show/movie right? As for them being “basically kid’s films”, I don’t think THAT is necessarily the issue. The problem is they keep making BAD films (to sell their toys). The Pixar films are for kids and they’re great (and I think they’ve sold a few toys too).

I know I don’t like the way they’re handling Spider-man so I’m not going to see it, but I am far from out of options when it comes to grown-up movies. Hell Adam Sandler made two movies for us Grown-Ups….oh wait…*sigh* never mind.

I’m one of the few who quite enjoyed this movie, despite its faults. Yes, it’s an overstuffed mess. Yes, it’s schmaltzy. And, yes, it’s a commercial product and them some.

But largely, so are comics – especially Spider-Man. Andrew Garfield is a perfect Peter Parker and a near-perfect Spider-Man. The screenplay, while questionable, showcases why we love the character: the well-timed wisecracks, the push-pull between in Peter’s love life, etc. Sure, it wasn’t done with the finesse we hoped, but given that, again, this is a studio product, that was probably never gonna happen anyhow.

And let’s remember what Webb did right: Spidey’s powers. Webb was able to do what no one outside of a book couldn’t: properly demonstrate Spider-Man’s agility, amongst his other powers.. Seriously, you could take frames from “Amazing 2” and throw make them into a splash page without much editing.